RFCs - insufficiently free? [LWN.net]

RFCs - insufficiently free?

Posted Jul 17, 2003 20:01 UTC (Thu) by Peter (guest, #1127)
In reply to: RFCs - insufficiently free? by iabervon
Parent article: RFCs - insufficiently free?

RFCs are even less logical to modify than documentation. With documentation, you might want to modify it to keep it accurate for software you've changed. But RFCs are obsoleted, not modified, in response to change.

True ... but in producing a new RFC, it is very helpful to have the right to cut and paste from an old one.

I think that's the real issue. The Internet Society only affords limited rights to cut and paste RFC material, so if they "turned to the dark side" you could no longer do this, and you'd have to write new RFCs (or whatever they would be called) from scratch.

Hence "non-free".

to post comments

RFCs - insufficiently free?

Posted Jul 17, 2003 21:31 UTC (Thu) by southey (guest, #9466) [Link] (2 responses)

Cutting and pasting is just plain plagiarism! A new RFC means that that old one is wrong so you just end up copying rubbish. If you want a variant then just write the variation - far better than reading a new standard to find that it is not new.

If any person can change the standard at whim then it is no longer a standard. This is one of places that Debian is screwed up - the second is that they become non-free because they require 'free' software. Really they need to avoid the word 'free' period.

RFCs - insufficiently free?

Posted Jul 17, 2003 22:58 UTC (Thu) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link]

Do I understand correctly that you are saying that all corrections mean
throwing out the original work? I guess you don't believe in software
patches or book editors.

RFCs - insufficiently free?

Posted Jul 17, 2003 23:48 UTC (Thu) by jdthood (guest, #4157) [Link]

> Cutting and pasting is just plain plagiarism!

It is not plagiarism if the source is acknowledged.
In any case, _credit_ is not the main issue here.

> A new RFC means that that old one is wrong so you just
> end up copying rubbish.

> If any person can change the standard at whim then it
> is no longer a standard.

This is a confusion I have seen again and again. Debian's
concern is not that the standard be changeable. It is that
the document be re-usable for other purposes -- like any
other free software.